Candidates Tournament 2026


The 2026 Candidates Tournament is an eight-player chess tournament that will determine the challenger for the World Chess Championship 2026. The tournament will take place at the Cap St Georges Hotel and Resort in Pegeia, Cyprus, between 28 March and 16 April 2026. The event will be held alongside the Women's Candidates Tournament.
As with every Candidates tournament since 2013, it will be a double round-robin tournament. The winner of the tournament will earn the right to play the World Chess Championship 2026 against the reigning World Chess Champion Gukesh Dommaraju.

Qualification

The eight players to qualify to the Candidates Tournament will be:
Unlike any other Candidates Tournaments, and any FIDE World Championship cycle, there is no automatic spot for the runner-up of the previous Championship. To compensate, the 2024 championship will be considered an eligible tournament for the FIDE Circuit, with the runner-up obtaining special bonus points for the 2025 FIDE Circuit based on the score.

FIDE rating qualifier

Despite reforms to the rating qualifier ahead of the 2024 Candidates Tournament, controversy arose over the continuous allocation of a spot to the Candidates by rating. As stated in the regulations, a non-qualified player is able to qualify "provided the player has played at least 40 games rated for the February 2025 through January 2026 standard rating lists, including at least 15 in any of the six consecutive lists from August 2025 to January 2026." Hikaru Nakamura, who ultimately secured the spot to the Candidates, opted to play in local U.S. and Canada tournaments: Louisiana State Championship, Iowa Open, Maritime Open, and Dulles Open. In these four events he played 22 games meeting the regulations criteria in order to reach the 40-game threshold, having played 18 games beforehand. He scored 20 wins and 2 draws against an opposition with an average Elo rating of 2090.
This garnered criticism from some grandmasters, notably Hans Niemann and Jacob Aagaard. However, Magnus Carlsen and Susan Polgar defended Nakamura, with the latter highlighting the openness that Nakamura showed by "discussing it publicly in advance and streaming his games". In response to the criticism, Nakamura noted earlier that "he is in the later stage of his playing life and wants to ensure he makes the most of his remaining chances to compete in Candidates cycles."
Starting on 1 October 2025, FIDE announced partial changes to the rating system in response to Nakamura's rating gain from playing lower-level opponents. For players rated above 2650, winning against opponents with a 400 point difference no longer gained 0.8 Elo points, instead only gaining 0.1 Elo points for a win and no rating gain when playing opponents with a difference of 735 points. Grandmaster David Howell called the reform "short-sighted and flawed", arguing for the minimum average of opponents rating to be used for qualification to the Candidates, and the change "will least impact the top players" and "negatively affect those who are dependent on open tournaments to make a living". The updated rules did not change Nakamura's approach, who continued to play in small tournaments to reach the 40-game threshold. He achieved this after winning the 1st Annual Washington Dulles Open on tiebreak in early November, guaranteeing that he would get the rating spot.
The following table shows the ratings of the players with the top average ratings from August 2025 to January 2026.
RankingPlayerAug 2025Sep 2025Oct 2025Nov 2025Dec 2025Jan 2026Average ratingCandidatesTotal games played
1

Organization

The tournament is an eight-player, double round-robin tournament, meaning there are 14 rounds with each player facing the others twice: once with the black pieces and once with the white pieces. The tournament winner will qualify to play Gukesh Dommaraju for the World Championship in 2026.

Regulations

The time control is 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, then 30 minutes for the rest of the game, plus a 30-second increment per move starting from move 41. Players get 1 point for a win, ½ point for a draw and 0 points for a loss. The pairings and colours for each round shall be decided via a draw, which shall be conducted not later than four weeks before the tournament.
Tiebreaks for the first place are addressed as follows:
  • If two players are tied, they will play two rapid chess games at 15 minutes plus 10 seconds per move. If a three- to six-way tie occurred, a single round-robin will be played. If seven or eight players are tied, a single round-robin will be played with a time limit of 10 minutes plus 5 seconds per move.
  • If any players are tied for first after the rapid chess games, they will play two blitz chess games at 3 minutes plus 2 seconds per move. In the case of more than two players being tied, a single round-robin will be played.
  • If any players are still tied for first after these blitz chess games, the remaining players will play a knock-out blitz tournament at the same time control. In each mini-match of the proposed knock-out tournament, the first player to win a game will win the mini-match.
Ties for places other than first will be broken by, in order: Sonneborn–Berger score; total number of wins; head-to-head score among tied players; drawing of lots.
The minimum prize money will be €70,000 for first place, €45,000 for second place, and €25,000 for third place, plus €5,000 per half-point for every player, for a minimum total prize pool of €700,000, according to the regulations. However, FIDE has stated that the prize fund will be at least €1 million.

Schedule

On 10 November 2025, FIDE announced the following schedule.